Long-time politician, Flora MacDonald dead at 89

Former Conservative Kingston and the Islands member of Parliament, the first female Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Member of the Order of Canada Flora MacDonald has died in Ottawa at the age of 89.

“She is really an example of what the best of politics has to offer for people,” John Gerretsen, former mayor of Kingston in the 1980s and member of Provincial Parliament from 1995 to 2014. “She’s an outstanding lady for this area and an outstanding lady for Canada.”

Born on June 3, 1926, in North Sydney, N.S. on Cape Breton Island, MacDonald held the Kingston and the Islands riding from 1972 to 1988. During her time in Ottawa, she served as minister of communications, minister of employment and immigration and minister of foreign affairs, the first woman to do so.

“She was one of the first leading-women in politics,” Gerretsen said. “She was so well-known and highly regarded. There were many, many occasions when people would come up to her from far, far away and admirably get a few words in with Flora.”

Former longtime Speaker of the House of Commons and Liberal MP Peter Milliken succeeded MacDonald in the 1988 election, a victory he didn’t expect.

“She was a very capable member of Parliament and frankly I was surprised when I won in 1988,” Milliken said. “I thought I might come a close second and that would put me in a good position for the next one when she retired.

“I was surprised when I won because she was quite popular and well known in the riding.”

Milliken said while MacDonald wasn’t in Kingston as much as she’d liked as a minister, early in her career she was at many of the community events talking to constituents.

“Very approachable,” Milliken said. “There was no problem going to her with a request for assistance with something. You could talk with her.”

In 1976, MacDonald was the first woman to contest for the leadership of the Progessive Conservatives. After losing to then prime minister Joe Clark, Clark named MacDonald the first female secretary of state for external affairs. She headed the department during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 to Jan. 20, 1981, when Canadian ambassadors sheltered six Americans who had escaped capture when their embassy had been seized by student demonstrators.

In 1984, under former prime minister Brian Mulroney, MacDonald became minister of employment and immigration then minister of communications.

Milliken said MacDonald was a leader for women in politics.

“She did an incredible job in her role (as minister of foreign affairs),” he said. “I would imagine she encouraged a lot of women to run too — directly or indirectly.”

Gerretsen and MacDonald were elected and left in their offices in the same years; Gerretsen as a city councillor and MacDonald as MP in 1972, then when Milliken beat MacDonald in the 1988 election, Gerretsen also decided not to run for mayor of Kingston again, opting for provincial politics instead.

“What was always amazing was at any sort of a public gathering, whether it was Canada Day or other activities, is how well she was regarded by not only Kingstonians, but by people from all over,” Gerretsen said. “She did a lot for this community as well. The harbour in front of City Hall, the Flora MacDonald (Confederation) Basin as it’s called, would not have been built if it wasn’t for her.

“The harbour didn’t exist, it was a very small boat dock. Then when she got into parliament, she made sure Kingston got the necessary funding to build the marina that’s there today.”

Gerretsen said MacDonald had the best attributes a Canadian politician can have.

“Knowing how to deal with people, knowing how to get things done for our community,” Gerretsen said. “She was a great individual, and I’m certainly sorry to see her go, but at 89, she certainly led a very good life.”

Sonny Sadinsky, lawyer and law professor at Queen’s University, worked on MacDonald’s campaigns. While he ran an election day campaign as well as advertising and promotions, Sadinsky said MacDonald knew a lot about electioneering.

“(MacDonald) ran a lot of her own campaign, she was the directing force because she was so politically astute,” Sadinsky said. “The rest of us gave her advice and did the work, but she made the important decisions.”

This made her easy to work will because of her commitment.

“She worked many hours a day, very often late into the night.” Sadinsky said. “She wouldn’t hesitate to call you at any hour, night or day, when she had something on her mind. It was always astute and fresh and sharp.”

After politics, MacDonald turned to humanitarian work, travelling to Afghanistan on multiple occasions as a human rights observer. In 1992, she was named to the Order of Canada for her work and “distinguished leadership in federal politics.”

The 1988 election wasn’t the first meeting between Milliken and MacDonald. Milliken met MacDonald, he recalled, when she was a secretary at Queen’s to the head of the Politics Department, John Meisel, in 1967. One of Milliken’s fondest memories of MacDonald came as a budding 21-year-old politician. He and a group of friends went out for a drink with MacDonald, just passing the legal drinking age at the time.

“It was something that didn’t happen much,” Milliken said. “We went and had quite a nice conversation, it was quite entertaining, it was different for us to be with an adult in a bar in those days.